“The KGB,” he muttered.
“It is the Committee of State Security,” Tatiana said. She jerked her head, and the men came forward to handcuff Andrew’s hands behind his back.
“Will I see you again?” Andrew asked. He still could not believe this was happening. The man who had hit him before hit him again, and he sank to his knees in agony.
“Yes,” Tatiana said. “You will see me again.”
*
Andrew was dragged to his feet and thrust through the doorway. Unlike what would have obtained in a British hotel, as there must have been considerable noise coming from his room, every door remained tight shut, and not a soul was to be seen. He was thrown down the stairs, arrived at the foot in a cloud of pain and disorientation. There was no one in Reception, either. He had read that the KGB was a state within a state, and had not believed it. But it seemed that they could bring an entire hotel to a standstill whenever they chose. An entire society, for when he was thrust out into the street it too was deserted, save for a policeman at each end, keeping traffic away.
And he had contrived to fall in love with a member of this horrendous organisation! Almost from the moment of their first meeting, a little warning light had been flashing at the back of his brain, telling him that no man could ever be so fortunate as to meet a beautiful girl on a train and have her, apparently, fall head over heels in love with him. Moreover a girl who just happened to be the daughter of the woman he was going to see, and equally happened to be able to open any door and unlock any secret for his benefit… Subconsciously he had known that had to be impossible. Yet he had fallen for it, and her, hook, line and sinker. And now must pay for it. In what way?
His only hope lay in the continuing belief that no woman could act that convincingly. Unless she was a monster. He twisted his head. Tatiana was walking immediately behind him. Her face was impassive. Perhaps she was a monster.
A car was waiting, into which he was thrust, one of the two men following, while the other got in the other side. Tatiana sat in the front beside the driver. “Please do not attempt to do anything stupid,” Tatiana said. “Or my people will beat you.”
Andrew attempted to swallow, and found that his mouth was absolutely dry. He had served as a soldier through the recent war, and had in fact been wounded on two occasions, although both times slightly. He was no stranger to death and destruction, and physical pain. Yet he knew this experience was going to be outside anything he had known, or had ever suspected could happen to him. Was he afraid? He supposed he was. But at the moment he was more disappointed, crushed, he supposed would be more accurate, that what he had been coming to regard as the love of his life should have been built upon such a disastrous deceit.
They drove out of the town to the airport, where a plane was waiting for them. Andrew was pushed on board and strapped into his seat. Tatiana sat opposite him. “I would like you to know that I am sorry,” she said, when they were airborne.
“Sorry!”
She shrugged. “I was given a job of work to do. You were a soldier. You have always obeyed orders, have you not?”
“You mean it was all play acting?”
Tatiana made a moue. “I enjoy having sex.”
“I asked you to marry me.”
“That was very kind of you. But it was not relevant.”
Andrew gazed at her. “So, what are you going to do to me, now?”
Tatiana sighed. “I am going to destroy you.”
Andrew caught his breath. “Just like that?”
“It is my job.”
“To destroy people. Even someone with whom you have, dare I say it, shared something of value?”
“I have never done this before,” Tatiana confessed. “It will be a new experience for me.”
“But you will do it.”
“Oh, yes. It is my job.”
“And you will enjoy it.”
Tatiana shrugged. “I think, very probably, that I shall.”
She got up and went forward to sit with the pilot. Andrew was so obviously shattered it was frightening. But she was herself trembling. As she had confessed, it was a new experience for her. Would she really enjoy it? The terrible aspect of the situation was that she probably would. Running through her system there was a streak of vicious sadism, inherited from her father, she supposed, but brought to fruition in the Great Patriotic War, when she had held so many lives in the palm of her hand, and ended so many of them. Her induction into the KGB at the end of the War had but intensified those feelings. She sometimes supposed that she was like some prehistoric goddess, whose maw needed to be fed every so often.
So, her couple of weeks as Andrew Morgan’s mistress had been in the nature of a holiday. But she had always known how it would end. Perhaps that had heightened the intense enjoyment of it. But that too would heighten the intense enjoyment of watching his disintegration, mental to begin with, and then physical. Beria had assured her there would be no necessity to worry about him being presented in a court of law for trial. She found her entire body becoming alive at the thought of it.
But she did not want to look at him again until it was time to commence. She did not leave the flight deck until the plane had landed, and Morgan had been removed. Then she too went to Lyubyanka, but in a different car.
*
“Tatiana!” Beria smiled at her. “You are, as always, a sight for sore eyes. Have you enjoyed your vacation?”
“Is that what it was, Comrade Commissar?”
“I would say so. Where is the subject?”
“Downstairs.”
“What have you done to him?”
“I have done nothing to him, yet, Comrade Commissar. I am awaiting your instructions. What is it you wish to know from him?”
“We have arrested a member of the spy organisation. Actually, we have arrested two of them; the third committed suicide. It is your task to make all three of them confess to their activities, and more important, give us names and addresses of the others in their organisation.”
“You are assuming that Morgan is linked to these other two.”
“Of course he is linked to them, Tatiana. One of the men arrested is the one you reported on the train, meeting with Morgan, and indeed, taking him back to his compartment.”
“Smith,” Tatiana said.
“That is what he is calling himself, certainly. I would assume that is an alias.”
“And the third person? Is he too, English?”
“She, is Russian. She and her husband were operating a message service for the English. It was her husband who blew his brains out when he realised the game was up. She did not have that resolution. I should think she is the weakest link in the chain. Have you ever interrogated a woman, before?”
“Only Atya Schulenskaya as part of my training.”
“Did you enjoy it?” Tatiana licked her lips. She made Beria think of a tigress, awaiting her next meal. “Then you will enjoy this one even more,” he said. “She is a pretty little thing. There is one thing I wish you to bear in mind. Amuse yourself as much as you like with Morgan, but I do not wish him to die. Do you understand this?”
I do not wish him to die, either, Tatiana thought. “But the others…”
“Oh, do what you like with them; they will not be seen again. Just get the answers. Morgan I want kept alive and in reasonably good health. There is someone who will soon be in Russia, with whom I wish to confront him. You understand?”
“I understand, Comrade Commissar.”
*
Tatiana found that she was trembling, with a mixture of anticipation and apprehension. The apprehension was of herself. As she had reminded Beria, she had been trained, both to interrogate and to resist interrogation, or at least to appreciate that resisting interrogation was impossible. She had been exposed to total darkness and continuous light, to more food than she could eat and to starvation, to endless sleepless nights as she had been forcibly kept awake…just as she had been strapped to the bars and
suffered the most painful and humiliating of physical torture. But up till this moment in her life, it had all been play-acting, whether experienced or delivered. One can stand almost anything, if one knows there is an end in sight, and even more if one also knows that the person who is inflicting the torment is actually a friend, with whom one will share a jug of vodka when the training session is completed.
When one is forced to accept that the pain is going to go on and on and on, until one dies or surrenders absolutely, the situation is far more difficult. And when one is told that the torture must go on and on and on, inflicted by oneself…she simply had no idea how she was going to react to that. What she would feel like afterwards. She was afraid of that.
*
But she was going to do her duty, and already her mind was being controlled by the sadistic sensuality of that duty. She took the elevator down into the basement, where the huge KGB building spread itself beneath Lyubyanka Square itself, and where there existed a hell those who had never been here could scarcely imagine.
The guard on the door of the cell block was today a woman, who was an old and intimate friend; as Tatiana had told Beria, they had trained together, had thus shared pain and ecstasy together — and had often carried the ecstasy beyond the training rooms: both were creatures of insatiable appetites, when in the mood, and as Atya was several years older than Tatiana, at that time she had been the leader in their relationship, although Tatiana, by virtue of her War experiences and triumphs — Atya had spent the War in Moscow and never actually fired a shot in anger — had always been the senior in rank. But their careers had bifurcated, catastrophically; just as they were completing their training, Atya had had a horrendous accident, falling from a tram and being run over. The doctors had saved her life, but left her with one leg permanently shorter than the other. The KGB had retained her services, in view of the amount of time and money spent on her training, but as she could no longer be considered for field work had relegated her to the duties of gaoler for the damned as it was called, guardian of those destined for torture and death at the hands of their inquisitors. Atya was entirely suited for the task, as since her accident she seemed to have conceived a hatred for the entire human race, with, Tatiana thought, the exception of herself. Isolated by her injury, Atya actually craved affection and love, and Tatiana was prepared to give her that, when she had the time — making love with a cripple was a new experience. And Atya was a still pretty woman. She was short and slender, with straight yellow hair which hung about her ears and a pert face. One had to know her very well to understand the dark forces that roamed behind those blue eyes, the desire to revenge herself upon the whole human race. To be at the mercy of this woman would make the devil himself seem an angel — and everyone down here was at her mercy, when she was on duty.
But she was as nothing compared with herself, Tatiana reflected. Only no one suspected that, either, save for those, like Atya, who had actually come face to face with her manic sensuality. “Eighteen, Nineteen, and Twenty-seven,” Atya said, looking at the paper Tatiana gave her.
“Show me,” Tatiana invited.
Atya limped in front of her down the corridors. Each door was shut and locked, the peepholes closed. “It is a resting time,” she remarked, jocularly.
“Have the prisoners seen each other?” Tatiana asked.
“Well, Eighteen and Nineteen were arrested together, Comrade Captain. But they were immediately separated. They have not seen each other since.” She paused before Number Eighteen.
“Just the window,” Tatiana said.
Atya slid the panel back, and Tatiana looked in. The woman was smaller than she had expected, and younger, too. Seen from the peephole, she appeared as a mass of pale brown hair, which shrouded her naked shoulders and back; she crouched on the bare floor, turned away from the door, huddled into herself. She was an attractive prospect. “Has she been searched?” Tatiana asked.
“Oh, yes, Comrade Captain. I searched her myself,” Atya said, with considerable satisfaction.
“But you found nothing.”
Atya chuckled. “I found a great deal, Comrade Captain. I made her squeal. But there was nothing of importance.”
“Bring her to the interrogation room,” Tatiana said.
Atya reached for the keys at her belt, from which there also hung several pairs of handcuffs. Tatiana stood back, and Atya unlocked the door, allowing it to swing wide. The young woman’s head turned, sharply, her mouth sagging open. She had a pretty face, the features small, in keeping with the rest of her, but clipped and attractive. Even the distortion of fear could not make them ugly. “Up, Antonina,” the guard said. “The Captain wishes a word.”
The woman Antonina licked her lips, then slowly got to her feet. There were marks on the pale skin, red blotches here and there; Tatiana presumed they had happened when Atya had been ‘searching’ her. She even retained some modesty, attempted to close her hands in front of her pubes, but Atya seized her arms and pulled them behind her back, clipped the handcuffs onto her wrists. “She is all yours, Comrade Captain.”
All mine, Tatiana thought, and realised that she had descended into as deep a pit as those Nazi interrogators who had, almost literally, torn one of her best friends to pieces. ‘Do what you like,’ Beria had said. ‘They will never be seen again.’ But whatever she did to this girl, certainly in front of Atya, had to be in the line of duty. “Bring her,” Tatiana said.
Atya jerked her head, and Antonina stumbled out of the cell, looked left and right, as if expecting an execution squad to be waiting for her. “Number Nineteen,” Atya said.
Tatiana stepped forward, opened the panel, looked in. She was disappointed. The man Smith, if that was his name, was sandy-haired and uninteresting. His thighs were thick, his penis too long, even in repose. She supposed some women might find that attractive. “Did you search him as well?” she asked.
“Oh, yes, Comrade Captain.”
“And did he squeal?”
“He thought he was enjoying it, until I hit him in the balls.”
“Well, bring him too.”
This time Atya raised her eyebrows. Having received the same basic training, she knew that there were three methods of interrogating, or to be realistic, torturing members of the same group, or people suspected of the same crime. The one most recommended by the experts was separatism. You tortured one at a time, out of sight or hearing of the others, and let them sweat with anxiety over what might be happening to their comrade, or more important, what he or she might be confessing. The second most efficacious method, so it was said, was to question the suspect out of sight and almost out of hearing of his associates. But close enough so that they could hear him, or her, scream in agony. This could terrify certain people into confessing whatever was required without having to lay a finger on them. The third method was that apparently chosen by the KGB captain, to interrogate one suspect in front of the other. This was a promising thesis, both because one could learn a lot from watching the expressions and reactions of the one not being interrogated, especially with regard to any information that might be elicited, and because the sight of a companion-in-arms being systematically destroyed before one’s eyes could often break one down before a single electrode was attached.
But it had also been proved, by experiment, that where two agents were both experienced and determined, they could actually encourage one another to hold out by being able to look at each other, and even speak to each other. Of course, Atya doubted the woman Antonina was either very experienced or very determined…but the men both looked hardened cases. However, she was here to obey orders. She glanced at Antonina, who was trembling from head to foot. “I will look after her,” Tatiana said. Atya shrugged and unlocked the cell door.
Tatiana looked at Antonina, who licked her lips. “Please don’t hurt me, Comrade Captain,” she whispered. “I will tell you anything you wish to know.”
Tatiana drove her fingers into Antonina’s hair, closing them on the
scalp. Antonina’s trembling increased to a long shudder. “Of course you will tell me everything I wish to know, Antonina,” Tatiana said. “But it can do no harm to jog your memory a little.” Antonina gasped.
From inside the cell there was a flurry of movement, and another gasp. The man who called himself Smith had made an attempt to resist Atya, who was hardly half his size, and Atya had kicked him in the groin. Now he knelt, bent double, panting with pain. He could no longer resist when Atya pulled his hands behind his back and handcuffed them.
“Number Twenty-eight?” she asked, as she pushed Smith out of the cell.
“We will secure these first,” Tatiana said.
*
The two prisoners were marched along the corridor to the interrogation room. Here there were four men waiting. Two were the habitual denizens of this pit of hell, but there was also a doctor in attendance, and a male secretary, seated at a table in the corner, notebook already open. The prisoners looked around themselves at the bars and the whips, the chains and the magnetos. They looked at each other, for the first time since leaving their cells. Then Antonina opened her mouth and began to scream, a wailing, high-pitched sound which reminded Tatiana of an air-raid siren.
Atya swung her hand and hit Antonina in the stomach. The wail became a moaning gasp, and Antonina fell to her knees. “Speak when you are spoken to,” Atya recommended, and grinned. “You will have sufficient opportunities.”
“Prepare them,” Tatiana said. “I will fetch Number Twenty-Eight.” She held out her hand, and Atya hesitated; these keys were her most precious possession, because they represented her power. But this woman possessed a power far greater than that of the keys. She unclipped them from her belt and held them out. She also unclipped one of the remaining handcuffs, but Tatiana shook her head. “I shall not need that.” Atya shrugged. She thought it might be amusing if the captain had overestimated her strength and ability, and Number Twenty-Eight got the better of her. But of course, the captain had a revolver hanging from her belt.
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